X84

X84

Through the spattered window of a bus
I mistook a scrap of yellow litter on the verge
for primroses and thought it was spring.
I was in those woods, running towards the stream
and stopped, stunned by a first sight in the weak sun
of a neat bunch of them, shining pale
in their posy of leaves. I left them, ran to trail
my hand in the sharp water and then sloped back
to the house and my aunt’s beige carpets.

We’re cooped in this bus together: the girl
with harsh-dyed hair, hand hooked on a pushchair,
the big woman balanced with her bags
on the sideways seat, me, and the man in front­,
his speckled pate like a moorhen’s egg.